Marginal Revolution has a brief analysis by Tyler Cowen of a New York Times article called “A Surprising Secret to a Long Life: Stay in School“. Great discussion about causation versus correlation in the comments. The title, of course, is a joke on that very topic.
From the article:
The one social factor that researchers agree is consistently linked to longer lives in every country where it has been studied is education. It is more important than race; it obliterates any effects of income.
Interesting piece, but as Tyler says, it jumps too quickly to a conclusion of causation, and immediately starts analyzing the effects of something they haven’t yet proven.